Dual-core Or New Video Card?

[gassyjoe]

I had asked this in a previous post but for some reason it looks to have been deleted.

 

 

A post mentioned a hardware and software mode for video encoding. Would I see more performance increase by upgrading to a dual-core system or by staying with my current single core system and upgrading my video card and using the hardware mode?

 

Basically, what sort of system would provide the best performance when encoding with this software?

[ggrussell]

Video rendering is VERY CPU intensive so a dual core system would give you better perfomance. With dual core system, I think you would also need Windows XP PRO to take full advantage of the processors. I haven't read up on the dual core processors much so I'm not sure if they work like SMP or not which requires WinXP PRO.

 

Having a video card that fully supports DirectX will also help, but mostly on the 3D transitions and effects. Ideally, it would be nice to have both. If you already have a good video card (not an integrated video chipset), then a dual core system would be a good choice.

[patatrox]

I had asked this in a previous post but for some reason it looks to have been deleted.

A post mentioned a hardware and software mode for video encoding. Would I see more performance increase by upgrading to a dual-core system or by staying with my current single core system and upgrading my video card and using the hardware mode?

 

Basically, what sort of system would provide the best performance when encoding with this software?

 

Sorry, still getting used to the new interface....

 

The short answer, if you have an awesome high powered video card, dual core won't do a whole lot for you. One of the guys I've spoken to with an nVidia SLI setup had some amazing numbers.

 

Dual-Core CPU Support

 

The information in this article applies to:

Easy Media Creator 8

 

Applicable Operating Systems:

Windows 2000 Professional

Windows XP Home / Pro / Media Center

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

 

Issue:

Does Easy Media Creator 8 take advantage of dual-core CPUs?

 

Solution:

Yes. Easy Media Creator is fully compatible with dual-core CPU configurations. Additionally EMC 8 video applications such as VideoWave and MyDVD are multithreaded and will take advantage of dual-core CPUs.

 

VideoWave and MyDVD have both a hardware and software rendering mode. Software mode relies on your CPU, where hardware mode will take advantage of your newer videocards to increase performance and provide additional effects which are not available in software mode.

 

In hardware mode, much of the compositing or video processing is offloaded to the GPU (video card) which would result in a dual core CPU not yielding a significant performance increase when compared against an identical single-core system.

 

In software mode, a more significant performance improvement would be measured on a dual-core core system when compared against an identical single-core system. The drawback is that many effects and transitions available in hardware mode can not be used.

[ggrussell]

In hardware mode, much of the compositing or video processing is offloaded to the GPU (video card) which would result in a dual core CPU not yielding a significant performance increase when compared against an identical single-core system.

 

Interesting that the apps would off load that much to the GPU. I can understand the compositing, but not rendering. Sounds like I need to go out and buy one of them new fangled $500 cards.